Roots:Colditz and Latter Days at Colditz (the books
by R. P. Reid), the film The Colditz Story (1955), the 1975
BBC/Universal TV series, and the board game
by Holdson), The Terminator (a time traveller from the future returns
to the past, creating a time loop), Galactica 1980 (scientist from
advanced civilisation giving Nazis futuristic technology). Ace mentions
the Stone Roses.

Intertextuality: Ace listens to Danny Pain on her walkman, first
mentioned in Paul Cornell's New Adventures No Future and Happy
Endings.

Goofs: Kurtz is constantly referred to as an officer, yet as a
Feldwebel his equivalent rank is sergeant, an NCO, not an officer.

Some lines are obscured by the background effects.

Upon arriving in the courtyard, the Doctor and Ace are shouted at in
German. (i.e. this is not translated) [This may be due to the TARDIS having
recently hit an anomaly in the vortex and is righting itself. Alternatively,
perhaps as 'hande hocht' and 'schnell' would be familiar phrases to Ace from
her own popular culture, there was no need to translate them]

There is no logical way German scientists - no matter how clever they
thought they were - could possibly use a laser to speed up the development
of nuclear technology. Ace's CD walkman is made of 1990s (not to mention
broken!) components that would have completely baffled them - how would
they even know what it was, let alone get it to work?

Ace explains that the TARDIS had disappeared when the Doctor and Klein
went to look for yet, yet can't have known this as she wasn't there, nor was
the Doctor able to tell her.

And don't even get us started on the paradoxical fact that Klein's future
history of 1965 is 'erased' so therefore the chain of events in 1944 never took
place (q.v 'Day of the Daleks', 'Carnival of Monsters', 'Pyramids of Mars',
'The Mutant Phase', 'The Curse of Fenric' - so we're
not going to bother mentioning it).

[How do they get messages from solitary confinement to others?] 'My cell looks over
the courtyard. I'll shout out to someone.'

Continuity: Klein is from the year 1965 in an alternative time line
in which Nazi Germany wins the Second World War thanks to laser technology gleaned
from Ace's captured walkman (enabling then to refine uranium and develop nuclear
weapons). In that time line, Ace is killed trying to escape Colditz, and the
Doctor flees in the TARDIS, returning in 1955 when he is shot by the SS and left
for dead, regenerating later - although they are fearful of the machine's technology
the Nazi's do not use the TARDIS. In 1965 Klein, with the assistance of another who
calls himself 'Schmidt' (presumably an alternative eighth Doctor - see 'Links'), finds
the ship's flight logs and programs it to retrace one of its most recent journeys,
to 1944 ('Schmidt' meanwhile programs it to dematerialize after she arrives, trapping
her there).

The TARDIS hits an anomaly in the vortex (likely Klein's TARDIS traveling back
to 1944).

The Doctor is shot in the shoulder but heals overnight, his bullet 'working its
way out' of his body.

Ace's rucksack contains a rope ladder and explosives, and her CD-walkman
came from Paul Tanner in the 21st Century (see: 'Links'). She determines to be
called Dorothy McShane (or simply 'McShane') from this story on.

The Bottom Line: As Nazi Germany is a setting that has been well trod
before by the series in other media (notably the New Adventures Timewyrm:
Exodus and Just War), 'Colditz', it could be argued, starts off on
its back foot. The addition of an intriguing time paradox the rest of the story
somehow isn't as engaging as it would like to be - perhaps we need to know more
about Klein or her world? Even the Doctor and Ace... sorry, Dorothy - fail to treat
the prison and its staff that seriously.

ACE IN TIME

There are three Aces, or perhaps it is more correct to say that there are three Dorothy McShanes. The earliest audio placement of Ace falls within the 'lost' Ace, Seventh Doctor and Raine season, and generally follows the character of Ace established by the TV series. The TV series' characters Big Finish feature of course have, in some other media, already been reinterpreted by non-audio or TV adventures; Ace shucked off her teenage self post-TV series to mature and harden through Virgin's New Adventures line. It is this version of Ace, broadly speaking, which develops with the Doctor and Bernice Summerfield in the three audio stories featuring this TARDIS crew, plus the Companion Chronicle The Prisoner's Dilemma (which also suggests that Ace travelled some time apart from the Doctor and Bernice and later returned to their company). A version of Ace with battle experience and some knowledge of futuristic technology also informs Enemy of the Daleks, and for many listeners it appears that in order to accommodate such dramatic changes in Ace's character, her time with the Doctor and Hex must therefore fall after her time with the Doctor and Bernice. This also suits the Bernice stories, too, as Love and War (being an adaptation of an early New Adventure itself) concerns an emotional arc for Ace that brings to an end her teenage outlook and introduces her aforementioned 'hard' adult identity. Finally, it is this version of Ace, or perhaps an interpretation of it, that best describes the Ace who for a time renames herself 'McShane' in Colditz and comes to meet Hex and travel with him and the Doctor shortly afterwards.